Coming August 6, 2024 — Pre-order now
“With wit, warmth, and humor, Edward Dolnick immerses us in one of the most exhilarating times in the history of science: when a motley crew of professors, naturalists, preachers, and bone hunters discovered the existence of dinosaurs. Written like an adventure novel but fashioned with historical rigor, Dinosaurs at the Dinner Party is a gripping story of how we came to understand that the Earth was old and once populated by ancient beasts.” –Steve Brusatte, professor and paleontologist at the University of Edinburgh and New York Times bestselling author of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs
My new book is a true story that begins with one of history’s most astonishing crime scenes. In England, around 1800, people unearthed enormous bones — bones that reached as high as a man’s head — that no one had ever seen before.
What could they be? Elephants? Giants?
They turned out to be dinosaur bones, although no one in the 1800s had ever imagined such things as dinosaurs. As far as anyone knew, the only animals that had ever lived were the ones from Noah’s Ark. No one had ever dreamed that the world had once swarmed with lizards as big as mini-vans.
In Bookstores near you!
Egypt was the mightiest and longest-lived empire the world has ever seen, and the most mysterious. Countless monuments and texts swarmed with hieroglyphs, but no one in the world knew how to read them. Then, in 1799, French soldiers discovered the Rosetta Stone. But what seemed like an answer to an age-old riddle turned out to be only a starting point. The Writing of the Gods tells the story of the thrilling, twenty-year-long race to decipher the hieroglyphs and solve one of history’s greatest mysteries.
The New York Times called The Writing of the Gods “exuberant” and “engrossing” and “thrilling.”
Read the review here.
The New Yorker devoted a long, enthusiastic review to The Writing of the Gods and called it “sophisticated” and “lively.”
Read the review here.
The Christian Science Monitor called The Writing of the Gods “fascinating” and “masterful” and “clear and engaging” and “illuminating” and “engrossing.”
The Economist said that The Writing of the Gods tells a story that “will astonish readers” and called the book “short, accessible, and highly entertaining.”
The Minneapolis Star Tribune said that The Writing of the Gods reads “like a thriller” and is “captivating” and “meticulous” and “entertaining.”
For other reviews click here.